New Pyramyd Air big bore!

There are lots of things happening that I can’t always share with you, and this is one of them. In two months, we will see the first Pyramyd Air big bore spring rifle. That’s correct — a spring-piston airgun that’s also a big bore.

To stay with the types of model names they’ve used for other airguns, they’ve decided to call the new gun the Earthquake. The first offering will be a .357-caliber rifle on a breakbarrel action. It will weigh 7 lbs. unscoped. It comes with open sights, but there’s a Weaver base permanently attached to the spring tube.

Pyramyd Air engineers used a customer focus group to design the new rifle’s specifications. It will cock with not more than 20 lbs. of effort. Because a carbine length is most preferred, the overall length of the gun will be 40 inches. The length of pull is adjustable from 12.5 to 15 inches, and the Lothar Walther barrel is just 12 inches.

The standard stock will be figured walnut, and a synthetic stock is available at no extra charge in the customer’s choice of 5 camouflage patterns. The pistol grip and forearm of the walnut stock are hand-checkered, and the ambidextrous pistol grip has a palm swell on both sides.

All the metal parts of the rifle are highly polished steel, though a matte nickel finish is available on request for no charge. The sights, which are all-steel, include a hooded front globe with 6 inserts and a micro-adjustable rear that can quickly be changed into a peep sight with parts that are provided. There are mounting points on both the barrel and at the rear of the spring tube for the rear sight, so the shooter decides where to put it.

Trigger
The customer focus group said the Rekord trigger was the only way to go, so it was updated with titanium components and enlarged to handle the powerful mainspring. The user can set the trigger to go off with just one ounce of pressure by pushing forward on the blade after the rifle is cocked; or it can be used un-set, where the adjustment range goes from 2 to 5 lbs. The second stage is glass-rod crisp, and the blade stops the instant the sear releases. You all know that a Rekord trigger is the finest there is. Well, the new trigger on the Earthquake is groundbreaking.

Programmable safety
Another feature the focus group demanded was a safety the owner can program. On the Earthquake, you get the choice of an automatic safety, a manual safety or no safety at all — a development that Pyramyd Air owner Joshua Ungier hailed as earth shattering.

What does it shoot?
I know what you’re thinking. What does this amazing new big bore rifle shoot? Well, the steering committee stepped in once again and mandated that the ammunition be easily obtainable. People don’t want to pay large amounts for special airgun pellets, and they certainly don’t want to cast their own. So, Pyramyd Air will offer a selection of 5 new pellets with the rifle. The target price for these new .357-caliber pellets will be not more than $5 per 200. And that could go down, but not up, as we get closer to the launch.

Test results
The rifle pushes a 125-grain pellet out the muzzle at 950 f.p.s. The heavy 175-grain pellets go out at 800 f.p.s. If you want real speed, the 90-grain pellets go supersonic, leaving the gun at 1,150 f.p.s.

The best 10-shot group thus far has been 10 in 0.50 inches at 50 yards, but they think they can do better than that by the time the rifle hits the market.

How are they able to do all of this?
Pyramyd Air took a different approach to the development of this unconventional new air rifle. First, they assembled a blue-ribbon panel of some of their most outspoken customers. These are not the people who buy a lot of guns from them. They’re the ones who write reviews about guns they don’t own and always give lengthy explanations of what Pyramyd Air ought to have done. Management decided that if there’s a group of people with this many marvelous ideas, they should capitalize on it.

Next, they decided to undertake a cart-before-the-horse development. The first thing they designed was the lithographed package the gun will come in. And it is gorgeous! Then, they wrote the owner’s manual. They report that it’s so much easier writing the manual before the gun is developed because the writer is free to improvise. The engineers have to catch up once they see how things are supposed to work.

Finally, they established a firm retail price of $250 for the rifle. That way, they know what everything has to cost before it’s developed. That’s so much easier than inventing new things and then trying to get them to conform to a cost standard.

And I’ve saved the best for last. Mr. Ungier told me that Pyramyd Air is committed (those were his words — he said, “Thomas, at Pyramyd Air, we are committed) to maintaining a clean environment. Using the state of California as their model, they said that this new gun would not poison the environment by so much as one gram of lead. And so far they have stuck to that committment. Not one gram of lead has left the muzzle of the pre-production prototype rifle. I believe they will maintain that record, too.

I wish I could show you a picture of the new rifle, but they’re keeping it under deep security at this time. Even the new package has not been seen by anyone outside the inner circle of the company.

The Pyramyd Air Earthquake — it’s shaking the foundations of the airgun world.

Last-minute irony
As you read this, I’ll be serving on jury duty. Apparently, the Grinch got into our local post office and sorted the mail recently!

Big Shot of the Month
Pyramyd Air’s Big Shot of the Month is Roberto Martinez. He’ll receive a $100 gift card. Congratulations! If you’d like a chance to be the next Big Shot, you can enter on Pyramyd Air’s Facebook page.

Roberto Martinez is the Big Shot of the Month on Pyramyd Air’s facebook page.

Close, but no cigar. For $250 I expect no less than 983,571,058 fps muzzle velocity and groups of 357 shots in .357″ inches at 357 yards in the .357 caliber.

Having to program the safety is ridiculous! The gun should know when it’s pointing in exactly the right direction to hit the bullseye or target and ONLY fire when it is. I’m a busy man and I don’t have the time to learn all this “safety” and “marksmanship” stuff!

I think they took me off the contact list for being over qualified when I complained extensively about how the Daisy Red Ryder I bought (from another store – but I bought it based on PyramydAir reviews and used the PyramydAir website to make them beat that price) wasn’t powerful enough for hunting moose. Then they had the nerve to refuse to refund the money that I never spent with them!

Scary thing – I just realized that my sarcasm here was probably pretty close to something that’s actually happened for real!

Oh my gosh. I asked my wife to read this article, and what do you think? She suggested we pick up and move to Texas, just so I can take advantage of this earth shattering gun. I’m weeping tears of joy as I write this. This next month will be a very busy time, what with leaving everything behind. But it’s a great new future we have to look forward too. Thanks for the “heads up” B.B.
Caio Titus

I really should learn to anticipate April 1st, so that I can hear/read news reports without getting suckered. I must admit you had me for awhile there (I am embarrassed to say for how long) but you finally pushed the limits of believability. But before I read about the blue ribbon panel, I knew I had been had by the cunning BB Pelletier. I should have known better than to trust a Frenchman.

The funny thing is, the best parts of this fantasy could be easily accomplished and would not be expensive it seems to me. By this I mean the Weaver rail and open sights. I have no manufacturing cost experience, but it seems that building a Weaver rail onto a rifle would be easier than the precision necessary to cut dovetail grooves into a receiver. Not to mention the multitude of mounting positions and no need for scope stop holes. You really had me with the open sights with globe front. I suppose that no brainers are too much to expect nowadays.

(Edith: Tom is tricking folks today. Take the cats and get out of the house!)

Will Pyramyd Air be making Flava Shots in .357 cal? That would be awesome! When will they be available?
You should make it out of stainless unobtainium, that way it would weigh only 2 lbs, and only cost $100. $250 is too much. Also, you need to make the stocks out of snakewood. And it needs to have a muzzle velocity of at least 1500, no make that 1800 fps, because muzzle velocity is everything. Can you make a 7.5 grain pellet in .357? If you did that, I would buy at least 1,000 of them, but not if there is any recoil, or sproingy noise. I don’t like recoil or sproingy noises.
Your sales staff should be proud of their commitment. Who needs engineers, I always say. They just muck up the whole process with their incessant talk of “laws of physics”, and “constraints”. I say get rid of them all.

Second paragraph had me thinking, then as i read on i realized the date. That certainly tickled the old funny bone and had me thinking how many people out there are awaiting the arrival of this most awesome springer, not many but i bet there are a few. I do love a good serving of irony with my tea and crumpets in the morning and will soon be off to my shed to build a big bore springer, i know i’ll just tape some copper tube to that old Relum Telly spring tube, trigger, and stock i got lying around. That should do the job just dandy. TTFN

Judging from what I’ve read, some people think that bigger slug is better.

Latest prototype I’m testing right now says faster is better. In brief – it’s an airgun that shoots airguns.

Stage 1 is a 20mm spring-piston smoothbore recoil compensating gun based on 100mm tube and piston powered by a ultra-high pressure gas spring (I obtained one from a truck). Cocking is made via hand swivel.
Stage 1 is loaded with a special projectile – a folding fin-stabilized cylinder-barrel combo, where the only metal part is the barrel liner, all the rest is carbon-fiber ceramics. And that is stage 2. First you cock Stage 1, then cock and load Stage 2 with 4.5mm dart-shaped heavy alloy projectile with 5.5mm winglets and a discarding sabot. After travelling 2.5 meter away from barrel @ 320m/s and making exactly 4 revolutions Stage 2 spits out the projectile, adding another 320 m/s. So resulting speed is an amazing 640m/s.
Stage 1 then deploys drag chute and falls some 10 m from muzzle, activating LED strobe to make searching easier.

Judging from what it does to a pig carcass, it’s a real showstopper – rather long projectile tends to start yawing and fragmenting right after it pierces pig’s skin.

Well, it’s not an everyday plinker (15 kg w/o scope and 30 kg of cocking power, twin 140dB-loud shot) but it’s dead accurate up to 100 meters and gives quite a punch to be used as hunting rifle. Hire a strong guy to carry and cock it for you and enjoy hunting like it was in early XX century in Africa!

There is something that P.A. really needs to come up with.
They sell plenty of guns that are suitable for killing and wounding a wide range of species, but they need to come up with a product for disposing of the “leftovers”.
I was thinking of something along the lines of a trebuchet or an air cannon. I need to have a range of 100-150 yds. with it. ( FEDEX would not be happy)
Some considerations are in order…
For a trebuchet, coons and possums will not be much of a problem, but starlings have a lousy B.C. and will not carry far enough to come down where I want them to go. With the air cannon I would need sabots . I would like them to be bio-degradeable. Still have the problem of the B.C. of starlings.
Maybe a mould that could be filled with starlings and be topped off with water….then frozen. That should give an adequate B.C. and prevent a shotgun effect. Should work with trebuchet or air cannon.

The reason I need the particular range is because of two neighbors. “Ed” right behind me is O.K. . Then I need to clear the back alley. Next lawn belongs to “Darrel”. That’s where I want to have the “projectiles” land. I don’t want them to go any farther and land in the farmer’s field beyond “Darrel’s” yard . I have nothing against HIM .

This rifle seems pretty interesting but I’m not a big fan of these large springers.
The new Crosman multi caliber PCP on the other hand…http://www.crosman.com/airguns/rifles/pcp/APR1
Multi caliber, multi shot, fps to spare and some GREAT accessories.

I’m ashamed to admit it but until I got to the part about writing the manual first and having the engineers design to that, I was fooled. I was wondering how the heck you had a 20 lb cocking effort for a rifle that would be this powerful, however. Anyway, I’ll take 3.

What a fun posting…wish this were all possible. Then there would be screaming in Washington ( D.C.)
and bills written to outlaw this air rifle. However, imagine the publicity for Pyramyd Air. And drawing attention to air rifles that Bloomberg and Schummer can get excited about..
Stay focused, my Friends,
Pete
California

That is some gun”Why I may even move back to New Jersey just so I can have it
consficated by the NJ Gestapo police and have it displayed at a press conferance
why NJ needs even more new gun laws.Happy April FoolsDay”

We also have an alarm cat who insists that we get up. He doesn’t care if he gets fed. He just doesn’t like us to sleep past a certain hour (and that time changes on a daily basis).

I have another cat who checks under the covers to make sure no cats are snuggling with me. If she finds one that’s keeping me in bed, she walks on them, pulls the covers back and gives them the evil eye. Even though she’s about 1/3 their weight/size, they get out of bed pronto. And so do I 🙂

We used to have an alarm cat too! We got in a fight to the finish together.
He would step on us until we got up, then he got tired of getting pushed off the bed (I was working night shifts at the time so when you’ve been sleeping for 4 hours you don’t feel like getting up for Billy the kid (we also had cowboy names for our cats but we went with outlaws since they’re rowdy)).
So he started to trow things off our chest of drawers until we got up. So I took everything off exept the alarm clock that he would push off too. Then I used that sticky stuff to put posters on wall to keep the alarm on the chest.
So he came back with walking on us but I got nerf gun by the bed and shoot him out of the bedroom.
It escalated to blitzrieg attacks, he would come in the room running, jumping on the bed, running over us and fleeing… that lasted a while but I was more patient and finally won! He stoped he let me sleep in the morning. It’s the only time I won over a cat and it was the greatest cat we ever had. We still miss him.

Those edible pellets look great and a great deal at a cent cheaper than the shooting can you sold last year.

The cat in my avatar (Pender Fishcakes Van Woozel) is my alarm clock. Every morning about 0500 he wakes me. I think this is a holdover from when he was little and I had to be at work at 0600.

Now I am retired and he weighs something over 20 lbs. He still tries to sleep curled up under my chin.

I am a little disappointed that the cat study you linked to didn’t include any Tuxedo Cats in its sampling.

Today’s article caught my attention with the promise of a big-bore springer, but rapidly degenerated into April Tomfoolery. Too bad. I don’t know how far a 20lb. spring could push a .357 pellet at any speed.

Tonight is the last night of the season for the 4H shooting school. It is the night when the kids (and adult coaches) get to bring their own air guns to shoot on the ten-meter pellet gun range. Here is what we are bringing tonight:

I have a new pellet design ready for this gun that will be truly revolutionary. It is a fin-stabilized rocket powered GPS guided smart pellet. It has 4 spring-loaded fins that are folded up inside during loading and firing, then pop out as the pellet exits the muzzle. A tiny rocket motor is housed inside the skirt of the pellet, that is activated by the pressure of the compressed air, and will work with spring, gas piston, pump, PCP, and CO2 powerplants. There is also a small GPS reciever and inertial guidance computer inside the head of the pellet that will guide it to the target, no matter what direction the gun is fired, by adjusting the angle of the fins in flight through tiny piezoelectric actuators. All the shooter needs to do is pre-program the pellet with the target coordinates, using the included targeting app (runs on Android and IOS), that sends the targeting information to the pellet using a Bluetooth connection, load then ‘fire and forget’.
The .357 version will be easy, the .25 and .22 versions might take another day or two, but the .177 version will be harder.
This design process is so much easier since I fired all the engineers.

Oh, thank goodness. That I can do. I was concerned you would need a flux capacitor (yes Virginia, someone has actually invented a capacitor made from concentric shells of graphene. They are calling it a flux capacitor!).

Can’t you amortize the cost of the Turbo Encabulator over the whole production run instead of trying to recover it on the first order? Actually, with minor changes in tooling, you should be able to use it on a variety of pellet styles.

Check out some of the other comments on this blog for more April Fool’s Day jokes. And don’t forget to look at some previous blog jokes:
/blog/2012/04/special-report/
/blog/2011/04/nasas-moon-mission-airgun/

We airgunners are really just kids that happened to get older. I’ve come to acknowledge that there’s a thread that joins most of us and it’s a kidlike fascination with all things that shoot. The light of that whimsical fascination may dim at times but it’s always there and I’ve witnessed it being rekindled in many. Me for one. Thanks to you and thanks to Tom.

Ever see the movie Cocoon?

Those folks that re-connected with their childhood were winners and happy. Those that thought the frivolous and immature romping about with no purpose were doomed to their despair and desparate existence. The oblivious result of pretending to be an adult.

I see the parallels in hobby airgunners. It can be as fun or as serious as you want it to be. If you take this too serious you’re missing the big attraction though. Don’t lose sight of the big attraction.

So, you’re wondering what the roots of this post are? Here it is….My daughter lives for challenges. Finding hidden things at Easter is a challenge. She won’t eat chocolate candy but likes finding it. All the chocolate easter bunnies now have .177 and .22 caliber holes in them. What a great day we had blasting those chocolate bunnies. Airgunning is such fun.

I was fortunate enough to see the prototype and final specs on this gun before Tom got to see them. I even designed the optional leather tassel that hangs off the bolt knob. I was tempted to buy one, but then I was appalled that they left off the automatic oiling port that was in the original design specs. I think I’ll pass on this one. Maybe next version if they offer adjustable Velcro tassels.
-Chuckj

This springer will hold up well against the new APR1 Quad. Hopefully, the spend uranium shot provided by the AEC will become available in the form of the fin-stabilized pellets for the Earthquake! We will be all helping the nation’s nuclear waste problem by utilizing at least some of it in our sport and vermin control efforts.

I would hope that Crosman will copy Gamo’s trick of offering a Gun Buddy (rifle sling) as a promotional gambit at the release of this new rifle. While cost constraints will make this difficult, it is a nice marketing promotion.

I suspect that this new break barrel will make its appearance along with the APR1 Quad and the Nitro Trail Pistol. All three seem to be in the same production run status, and they are anxiously anticipated for future delivery.

Nice try, B.B., but the physics had you exposed from the early going. I wonder how much effort it would take to cock a spring gun that could really perform like this.

I have a better idea for the feral pig problem. You just need an optimum area for your imported tigers–big enough so that the pigs do not get wise to what is lurking within but not so big as to be too expensive to maintain. Maybe an acre or two. Then, you stock it with everything that feral pigs love–mudholes, corn fields for them to tear up, things they can’t resist. The barrier to this preserve will be a high chain link fence but made porous with small chutes big enough for pigs to go through but not tigers. The chutes can be set into the fence itself (sort of like gates in cell membranes for the transmission of chemicals) or under the ground. These chutes will channel the pigs away from tearing up the fence since there will be no need. But what really maintains the barrier is not the fence but the mentality of the animals. The curiosity and greed of the pigs will drive them in. Tigers, on the other hand, are basically conservative and more interested in maintaining their territory, especially when they’re well fed. So, they will have no motive to leave. What you’ve got here is a giant pig trap, and you just sit back and watch the pigs disappear and the tigers reproduce and get shipped back to India to bolster the population there. This is not that far-fetched! (Don’t try that one.) Animal shelters have to work overtime to rescue tigers from these roadside zoos. Just transfer the tigers to these giant pig traps. It will be more of an attraction anyway that will make the owners more money than just seeing the tigers in a cage. You could even take advantage by creating special viewing stands for people to observe the tigers or even for pig hunters to operate (although God help them if they hurt the tigers). Everyone is a winner.

john, are you being required to use the shotgun to hunt muskrats? That’s crazy and unfortunate too for the sake of the muskrat. What kind of accuracy are you getting with your scoped AK? I was watching yet another comparison between the AR and AK the other night. This one was performed by a credible and likeable internet character named Iraqveteran88 and his friend sporting a long prophet beard. They compared ARs and AKs equipped with red dot scopes fired from a bench. At 100 yards, the difference in group size was…not that much. For some reason they did not measure the groups. They looked to be about 3 inches and if the AR was a little tighter it was barely perceptible. Then they tried ringing a 16 inch gong at 440 yards and then hitting a man-sized paper silhouette at that distance. And the difference was…still almost indistinguishable. What it came down to is that the AR felt better and more ergonomical but that was about it.

Well I reached a bit of a compromise on the shotgun thing. I said I’d bring the thing along when I hunt but I never said I’d use it. Instead I’ll set up with my AK47, a scope and bipod at my favorite hinting hide. I get a nice wide field of view and with a nice scope on my AK47 I should be able to put a shot anywhere I choose to put it. My AK by it’s very nature doesn’t come close to BB’s tack driving custom AR but I figure taking my time I could likely put my shots inside an inch at 100 yards since my AK is also a custom built deal. What’s more impressive to me isn’t really the accuracy, but the fact that I can punch holes in stuff the AR can’t penetrate. Put that with my custom polished smooth as silk action and the AK’s legendary reputation for not jamming and this is one of my favorite guns. I’m not done with it yet since I have to put in the double hook adjustable trigger yet, install a return spring buffer and put on my custom recoil reducing muzzlebrake. When all that is done it should be every bit as comparable to an AR if not better since the AK is a bit heavier than an AR which helps dampen recoil and muzzle climb when the gun is configured correctly. Also when watching these comparisons on AR vs AK look at how they are testing them. Alot depends on who is using the gun. If you know your gun and know how to handle it you will definitely see good results. If you just go pick up any gun and start popping out shots you won’t see any real result. Bullets or pellets are not guided ordnance. the guy behind the trigger needs to do his part too. I would guess in the video you watched you saw somebody that knew these guns well. You need several thousand rounds of practice to really get the performance out of a gun.

Sorry to break the mood… but on a serious note, why not a springer big-bore?

To get any sort of usable velocity one would have to have a powerplant with at least 3-4 times a normal magnum’s power, I suspect. That would require a lot more swept volume (with a long stroke) and a very stiff spring.

It would also require a multi-stroke cocking mechanism… like a car jack. Daisy did something similar with their old 1894 that cocked on the forward stroke of the lever as well as the rearward stroke. There’s no reason this couldn’t be done with a breakbarrel.

I bet it’d even sell… before everyone discovered what a monster it would be to actually shoot….

Vince,
I have been seriously thinking about a largish bore springer swivel gun! With a fixed placement (swivel locked), a good long lever could be used to cock the cylinder. I started thinking this way because there is a pretty practical limit to cylinder diameter in hand helds, but volume increases much faster with diameter than length and I suspect that length also increases “hold sensitivity”, so a 4″ diameter cylinder (just off the top of my head) with length similar to a “normal” air rifle with ~1″ cylinder would have up to 16X the power. Just thinking it would be fun to try, and probably not that difficult to implement — I think the trigger would need to be electromechanical, probably, as that would be the easiest way to do it.

Just thinking. If this gun was made and could shoot those fps with that caliber. Would the gun kick like a centerfire rifle and you would have to hold it tight.Or would you do the artillery hold and hold it loose like a springer to achieve accuracy.I wish it was going into production even though I favor the PCP and pump guns.I would probably get one.

-I hate hate HATE people who post airgun reviews on PA that look like that, if you WANTED a springer, why didn’t you BUY one…I LOVE the article, though. It says almost everything I complain about in people’s rants but does it so much better.

B.B., off subject, I’m looking for a small “pocket” BB/pellet pistol. I think the smallest right now are the Walther PPK and the Umarex Markarov. Is that correct, or am I missing something? I enjoy carrying a small pistol when I hike or go fishing (if private land I’ll sometimes take a firearm). People say you need a rimfire or .410 for a snake gun. Well a bb will do just fine. No I don’t kill them unless I have to. Plus when I rest hiking or get bored fishing, I like to plink around some. Thanks

B.B., don’t get me wrong…would not shoot animals. But I’ve have killed snakes several times with one shot of a Red Ryder (between the eyes). That said, when I say snake gun, it is at very very close range. My old Crosman 1377 also has done it’s fair share too. But like I said, when I can (not public land) I do carry a rimfire. I have too many to list, but my favorite for hiking is my Ruger Bear cat. Nice and small. Thanks for the info on the BB pistols. I knew from reviews that the Makarov was more accurate. But I had no idea it was that much better.

As a matter of fact, I always dreamt of something bigger than a .25 with the spring-piston design. When I googled and got your page describing the gun, I automatically went up to see when it was published, then stumbled on the date and assumed it was a joke… LOL

I guess, if it was a feasible design, the gun would be at least twice as big, thick and heavy than a Hatsan 125…